What the patches are NOT doing

[MrsWargamer]

I have seen around the wargaming universe (ie places we talk about this game), is a lot of "I want this and I want that".

I think over all, Slitherine needs to really get out there, and (in a more diplomatic fashion than is my norm ), tell everyone that the latest patch and likely anything in the near future, is unlikely to deliver on some expectations as it just isn't in the scope or priority of the publisher.

Single player German Campaign. Lots of people have been wanting this, but the truth is, the game was made specifically so you could make what you wanted yourself. People are always screaming they want a mod capable game. Well, you got it. Don't wait for that single player game to magically appear in a patch (they have more pressing issues).

Random generated maps. The game works off of deliberately created maps. I would not spend a lot of time waiting for a patch to give you what the game is specifically not about. I don't know that it isn't possible, but again, they are working on more pressing issues.

A Pacific game please or A Russian front game please. In either case, a patch is not required. Actually, you should be addressing your efforts to the mod community, not asking Slitherine for it. Although I myself would not object to paying for a nice done properly play tested effort, the fact is the game was made so WE could make these requested creations.

More realism. I think over all, some are concerned by what they 'think' is a lack of realism. Actually, if I was given the option, I can illustrate the lack of realism in a lot of our more 'indepth' wargames just as readily. BBC BA is just what it is, an easy to play game that requires a measure of practice to be any good at. What may 'seem' as unrealistic, may in fact really just be the gamer not having the ability to see why some things happen as they do.

But some of those issues are being seen too.

In upcoming patches, I am hoping to see some of the games 'routines' and processes tweaked a little. But I am not expecting any major game evolutions just yet.

As for more types of units, more settings, and additional maps, I'm all for waiting to see what the mod crowd has to offer.

[IainMcNeil]

Its hard to say what you're not going to get

We will not be patching in a German campaign. People can build their own maps but this game is about playing as the Alies in single player. This is the way it was designed and what we told people they woudl get and no amount of complaining is going to change that. A German campaign would be an different game. Same goes for Russians, Japanese and any other setting you can think of - there is absolutely no chance of us creating a whole new game and giving it away for free. We'd be bankrupt before it was finished

Random map generators are not planned. The game is designed to work with scenarios where there are objectives, events, etc. Not a random line them up and charge battle generator.

We prefer to tell you what you will get.

In the next update you will be getting
* Multiplayer map - Road to Caen. Canadians must attack a German position. 5 Victory points on the map. Canadians must capture enough to win before the time limit of 16 turns expires.
* Multiplayer map - D-Day + 3 - Brisith forces attacking a German held town. British must capture VP's before the 20 turn time limit expires.
* Multiplayer map - Race for the Town - A meeting engagement between US and German focres in the Ardennes. The side with the most VP's by the end of the 20 turn time limit wins.
* Multiplayer map - Desert Rats - German & Italian forces attack a British position. The Axis player must capture VP's before the 20 turn time limit expires.
* New Unit - British paratroops. Appears in the D-Day + 3 scenario. Also available for addition to user scenarios.
* New Unit - German Wespe. Appears in Race for the town and D-Day + 3. Also available for addition to user scenarios.
* New Unit - German Sdkfz 251/2 mortar carrier. Appears in Race for the town and D-Day + 3. Also available for addition to user scenarios.
* New Unit - German 37mm Stielgranate. Appears in D-Day + 3. Also available for addition to user scenarios.
* New Unit - German FlammPanzer III. Appears in Race for the town. Also available for addition to user scenarios.
* New Unit - M8 Greyhound - Created by Tim Catherall. Appears in Street fighting. Also available for addition to user scenarios.
* Modified opportunity fire system to make units more proactive.
* Modified balance of existing MP scenarios to make them more even.
* Removed locks for single player campaigns preventing you from advancing if you failed a mission.
* Various bug fixes and minor improvements.

I think that is pretty cool as a free update

[junk2drive]

Sounds good. Thanks for that.

[MrsWargamer]

Daaaaaaaaamn some of that sounds soooo want it

[Sleet]

I think that is pretty cool as a free update

Very cool!
Thanks DEVs. Keep up the awesome work.
Indeed with the modability of the game, people can stop asking/whining and start building their own.

[PirateJock_Wargamer]

I suppose that will have to do for now .... cool .... it's more of a just below freezing update! Thanks

[paulolszanski2]

not to be a pain but when will we see the new update?THIS IS LIKE WAITING FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!

[hidde]

And now I see Ian posting challenges for two new MP-scenarios: "Attackdefence" and "British Attack"...and I cannot play any

[berndN]

Thanks for the info and sounds great !

[rich12545]

Hi, couple of things.

I don't see on the list an improvement to op fire that has been discussed.

Can someone please write a simple tutorial on how to turn a mp map into a sp scenario?

[pipfromslitherine]

It's there

* Modified opportunity fire system to make units more proactive.

To play a MP in SP, you can simply copy the folder from the MULTIPLAYER folder into you My Documents\My Games\BBCBA\Campaigns folder. At this point the AI won't have any orders though, and will only react when they see you, but you can assign the AI units into teams and give them behaviour in just a few moments.

Cheers

Pip

[rich12545]

Ok, thanks. Guess I was having a senior moment. Went back and looked and it still took me three times to find the op fire line.

All I need to do is move the folder and assign all units to s&d and it's ready. That's cool.

Edit. Nope, it doesn't have a campaign name and it won't work. I think I'll have to copy it into the template. It probably needs more files like campaign.txt and text1.txt. I'll see if I can figure it out and report back in case others want to do it.

[pipfromslitherine]

I'm not sure what you mean? If it's missing a string then you might see an odd name, but the text1.txt file is already there, so you can just drop it in.

I'll take a look here, I'm pretty sure I tried it in the past when testing things.

Cheers

Pip

[rich12545]

The name of the folder that I copied is MPBulge. I've been doing stuff on my flight simulator this afternoon and haven't had time to look at details.

[cptkremmen]

Interesting list of things coming in next free patch.

I should imagine that a Pacific version of the game, or Russian Front Version, or one you can play as the Germans in single player would be excellent sellers as an expansion. I don't think many people expected such a major enhancement to be handed over free! I would be quite happy to hand over £20 or so for a Russian front or Pacific version of this game.

I hope such paid expansions are being considered down the line. I don't have figures for sales of course, but this game seems pretty popular?

Andy

[pipfromslitherine]

The name of the folder that I copied is MPBulge. I've been doing stuff on my flight simulator this afternoon and haven't had time to look at details.

I copied MpBulge into my Mydocs\...\Campaigns directory, and it ran fine. All the names and strings seemed to be correct, came up on the campaign list, got into battle, etc. Have I possibly misread what you wanted to do?

Cheers

Pip

[rich12545]

Sigh, another senior moment. I had (and forgot) an empty folder that I was going to use and that's what showed up.

Would you mind (or if it's been done say where) explaining simply how to get all the german units into a team and give that team S&D orders. This is really great. The MP maps really extend the game. I never play multi.

[jomni]

We will not be patching in a German campaign.

Of course. This is BBC Battlefield Academy afterall. Maybe we'll get a Deutsche Welle Battlefield Academy in the future with the German campaign.

[rich12545]

The name of the folder that I copied is MPBulge. I've been doing stuff on my flight simulator this afternoon and haven't had time to look at details.

I copied MpBulge into my Mydocs\...\Campaigns directory, and it ran fine. All the names and strings seemed to be correct, came up on the campaign list, got into battle, etc. Have I possibly misread what you wanted to do?

Cheers

Pip

I think I figured it out. The ai wasn't doing anything. I put in the bsf file from the template after changing the name and it seems to work fine. There are apparently no bsf files in multi scenarios.

[pipfromslitherine]

Correct. No need for AI behaviour in MP maps . I'm working on a plugin system to the editor which will allow for making this stuff more automated, e.g. you tell it you want to use a template script, and it pops up a dialog allowing you to set up various values. Still work in progress, but should simplify things somewhat.

Cheers

Pip